Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2016 19:07:04 GMT -5
www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/obama-russia-hack/510974/
"Cut it out"? And that didn't make Putin tremble and back off?
Come to think of it, that approach didn't work when my little brother broke the lock on my diary, either.
More at the link.
President Obama on Friday vigorously defended his handling of Russian interference in the election, saying he did not retaliate against Moscow because he feared undermining public confidence in the integrity of the vote.
“My principal goal leading up to the election was making sure that the election itself went off without a hitch,” the president said in his final year-end press conference. “That it was not tarnished and that it did not feed any sense in the public that somehow tampering had taken place with the actual process of voting. And we accomplished that.”
Ultimately, Obama chose to have the director of national intelligence release a statement in October identifying the Russian government as the likely source of the hacks, but intelligence officials did not accuse Moscow of trying to elect Trump until after the election. Nor did Obama publicly call out Putin or take retaliatory action. Instead, the president said he pulled Putin aside at a global conference and told him to “cut it out and there were going to be serious consequences if he didn’t.”
Why didn’t he take stronger action? Obama suggested his hands were tied by a hyperpolarized political environment and that any statement or action he took would be seen as trying to undermine Trump and aid Clinton. And he feared provoking Putin further. In part, Obama acknowledged, he wanted to make sure the initial meddling “wasn’t compounded by potential hacking that could hamper vote counting, affect the actual election process itself.”
“My principal goal leading up to the election was making sure that the election itself went off without a hitch,” the president said in his final year-end press conference. “That it was not tarnished and that it did not feed any sense in the public that somehow tampering had taken place with the actual process of voting. And we accomplished that.”
Ultimately, Obama chose to have the director of national intelligence release a statement in October identifying the Russian government as the likely source of the hacks, but intelligence officials did not accuse Moscow of trying to elect Trump until after the election. Nor did Obama publicly call out Putin or take retaliatory action. Instead, the president said he pulled Putin aside at a global conference and told him to “cut it out and there were going to be serious consequences if he didn’t.”
Why didn’t he take stronger action? Obama suggested his hands were tied by a hyperpolarized political environment and that any statement or action he took would be seen as trying to undermine Trump and aid Clinton. And he feared provoking Putin further. In part, Obama acknowledged, he wanted to make sure the initial meddling “wasn’t compounded by potential hacking that could hamper vote counting, affect the actual election process itself.”
Come to think of it, that approach didn't work when my little brother broke the lock on my diary, either.
More at the link.
